Those netbooks, eh? They seem to be cropping up just about everywhere. The Asus Eee PC has gone down a storm and a number of other netbooks have also emerged. Gizmodo’s Brian Lam met Michael Dell at the All Things Digital event last night where he saw the prototype of an as yet unnamed small form netbook.
Netbook is the term that has been given to small laptops designed to make connecting to the Internet a simple and more affordable option. These notebooks have ultra small form and limited options in order to minimize the size and weight of the device. By also using inexpensive chips, netbooks are also usually well within the budget laptop range.
The popularity of Netbooks has been increased, in part, thanks to the $100 laptop OX from OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). While that particular laptop is designed primarily for sale in developing countries, it and many other netbooks are available around the world.
Dell briefly reported on the chance encounter in their blog, and released a couple of photographs of the nameless netbook (the pictures on the blog are stored under the name Mini Inspiron). Apparently, it’s an idea that Dell contributors have helped form through the Dell IdeaStorm project although if you click the link provided the mention of specs on there looks unlikely if Dell wants to compete seriously in the budget market.
